These complexities should be borne in mind when thinking about how a company like Facebook could be more regulated
internationally. AsTufekci sums it up,
zeynep tufekci
@zeynep
Replying to @zeynep
Business interests vs. human interests. When history of all this is written,
Myanmar will be a piece that won’t be ignored. Some of this *is* complex. That
was an egregious shrugging of responsibility. They should have made it a giant
priority in 2013.
Rafiq Copeland @RafiqCopeland
Replying to @KevinFoley
In Germany they have 1200 German language content reviewers for
40million users in order to meet the government enforced 24hour review
threshold. In Myanmar for 30million it is 'dozens' and they've only just been
hired. This doesn't come close. @zeynep
2:44 AM · Apr 11, 2018
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There are questions to ask about Facebook’s flat-footedness in the face of clear evidence of its role in a mass atrocity. Myanmar is only
the most vivid example of dynamics playing out in many developing countries—and as developed countries with political and economic
power brainstorm ideas for the regulation of Big Tech, this should be a part of the calculation. Legal frameworks have the power to
provide standards against which Facebook’s conduct could be measured, and a common vocabulary with which to have the conversation.
They could also provide procedural mechanisms that provide transparency into what resources Facebook is dedicating to minimizing its
contribution to harm in these situations and visibility into specific issues such as the steps it is taking to prevent moderators from again
removing content that could potentially be important evidence of human rights abuses.
International law will need to account for the role of new communications technologies in crimes against humanity, and the
unprecedented power a few corporations have over the public spheres of foreign countries. But this reckoning will take time, and
meanwhile, domestic legal systems are already contemplating action. As they do so, lawmakers in countries like the United States
should consider what tools are available to shed light not only on the effects of the activities they are thinking of regulating
domestically, but also on the power of these platforms in societies with weaker institutions.
To ask Facebook to remove all hate speech or misinformation from its platform is unrealistic and unhelpful. But to ask it to take
reasonable steps to create systems to prevent the spread of the majority of the worst content in a timely fashion could save more than a
few lives.
Topics: Cyber & Technology
Tags: Myanmar, ethnic cleansing
Evelyn Douek is a Lecturer on Law and S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein
Center for Internet & Society. She studies online speech regulation and platform governance. Before coming to
Harvard to complete a Master of Laws, Evelyn clerked for the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the Hon.